


The Noonday Demon

by madame_faust



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Depression, Durin Family, Durin Feels, Dwarves In Exile, Erebor, Gen, Kink Meme, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Smaug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2017-12-17 16:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for a prompt on the kink meme: "I'd like to see a fic exploring one of the Dwarves struggling with depression. They don't call it that, of course, but maybe they have another name for it. Maybe they have their own treatments/therapies. Maybe they have no treatment and simply have to take comfort and assistance from family and friends."</p><p>There is more the eldest heir of Durin has inherited from his father than wealth and a title. The dragon sickness is not the only malady of the mind to plague the ruling family of Erebor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no profit from this story. The title comes from Andrew Solomon's _The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression_. I didn't intend for the parallels to be quite so blatant, but it can be read as a companion piece to _Home at Last_.

Tired. He was only tired.  
  
Why should he not be? After five hours spent sweating in the forge, watching the imperfect blades he created melted down for worthier hands than his to mold into something better, after another four in the guardsmen’s training grounds always a second too slow, a touch too clumsy, it was little wonder he was dead on his feet.  
  
And so, when Dwalin’s suggested they have a wash and head off to Dale to watch a traveling theatre troupe who’d taken up residence in the city for the week, Thorin declined. Of course he did, he was tired and what business did Dwalin have looking disappointed? They spent enough time together, between their apprenticeship among the smiths and their time training. Was it any wonder Thorin wanted time to himself, time alone?  
  
“Alright,” Dwalin nodded and _looked_ at Thorin in a way that made the other dwarf gather his sword and axe against his chest, as though the metal would deflect the worry fairly radiating off his dearest friend. “Are you coming to supper?”  
  
“I’m not hungry,” Thorin replied shortly. “I’m going to bed.”  
  
“To bed?” Dwalin asked incredulously. “Sun’s not even set and you’re going to _bed?_ ”  
  
Thorin shifted uncomfortably, frowning at nothing in particular. What did Dwalin care how he passed his evenings, abed or carousing in a city of Men? He had other friends. Thorin wasn’t denying him anything by passing on the chance to see some mummers lark about like fools. There were young dwarves aplenty who would satisfy his need for entertainment and companionship. Thorin only wanted a quiet room and solitude. Forever, preferably.  
  
“You’ve got to eat, at least,” Dwalin said reasonably, but Thorin did not hear the gentle concern in his voice. All he heard was an order, the implication that he did not know how to take care of himself and that rankled.  
  
“I haven’t ‘got’ to do anything,” he shot back, turning away from his friend and kinsman before he could see his unlined brow wrinkle in distress. “Eat, drink, be merry, what do I care? I’m going to bed. You aren’t my keeper.”  
  
Dwalin said something, called after him, either a plea or an insult, Thorin did not know. Nor did he care though some anxious part of his heart whispered to him that he’d _done it now_ and _see if Dwalin gives you the time of day_ because he’d _burnt that bridge well and truly_ , hadn’t he?

Thorin was old enough now to reside in the guardsmen’s quarters, but he did not take himself there. He was sweaty and filthy, his skin felt too small and his hair was clinging to the back of his neck so irritatingly that he was struck by the thought that if he could find a strong enough razor, he’d just cut it all off.  
  
But that was ridiculous, he thought a second later. A shorn head was a sign of exile or mourning. And he wasn’t mourning anything. It was merely late. He was only tired. And the prospect of waking the next day and doing it all again and again the day after that made him more exhausted.  
  
Instead of taking himself back to his cell, he made his way to his family’s apartment, where his parents lived with his younger brother and sister. They had a private bath and none of them would be at home. They would all be at supper now, enjoying the company of friends and kin, probably Dwalin was telling them what a grump he’d been and they were even now laughing over it. Laughing at _him_. Damn them all, wasn’t a body permitted to rest itself without being regarded as some great joke.  
  
 _Fussy dwarfling_ , they were likely saying, all mocking smiles and shaking heads. _Putting himself to bed without supper._  
  
The beautifully appointed, windowless rooms held no cheer for him. He had no bed here any longer, Frerin had taken his place in the nursery and Dís had her cot. The cheerfully glowing torches and warm fire in the hearth reminded him not of the comfort of home, only his failure at his craft, how he’d burned himself two days ago and the flesh of his left hand was still stiff and shiny. Not that Thorin said anything about it. He never wanted to be seen as a whinger, a child.  
  
When he waited for the servants to draw the bath, Thorin felt himself flush hot after he gave the order. The servants too, would speak of him now. _Quite the irksome little babe, our prince. Running to his parents’ quarters when he’s in a strop._  
  
The water was hot enough to scald and his left hand throbbed as Thorin got into tub, but his rigid muscles would not relax and his chest only got tighter even as he scrubbed himself with the soap until his skin was rubbed raw. His wet hair clung to him and he lowered himself until he was totally submerged under the water. Dwarves did not float, they sank and as the bubbles drifted out of his nose toward the hazy light above him, Thorin thought he might like to stay like that all night. At least it was quiet her and he was quite, quite alone.  
  
But his lungs tightened and burned in time and, limbs heavy, he forced himself to sit, dripping water over his shoulders and chest, gasping for air, shaking slightly. He did not know why he should be shaking.  
  
Thorin withdrew from the bath only after the water began to cool. His soiled clothes were gone, replaced by clean garments, a soft tunic, threadbare around the elbows and the loose trousers he wore for sleeping. Even his boots had been cleaned and were lined up neatly, just outside the door.  
  
The clean clothes were an improvement, however mild. His hair stubbornly refused to dry, no matter how he scrubbed it and the long dark locks wound around his neck like a noose. Thorin left his boots where they were and padded down to the sitting room, still empty.  
  
Where were they? Thorin wanted to see no one, but it was odd that his family should be so long away - unless the discussion of his shortcomings they were inevitably engaged in was still ongoing. he would not be surprised, if they really made an effort to create a proper catalogue, they would be at it all night.  
  
The notion of returning to his shared chambers was still anathema to him and Thorin was _so_ tired. The bath made lethargy cling to him, like he was surrounded on all sides by a heavy, wet fog. He had no bed to rest upon here, but there was a low couch before the fire that was long enough and wide enough to accommodate a foolish, half-grown dwarfling. He would lie down for a minute, just to collect himself. Then return to his room.

This piece of furniture had been part of his family’s suite of rooms for as long as Thorin could remember. It was newly stuffed, plush and comfortable. It smelled of the pipeweed his father favored and his mother’s hair oil. Frerin and Dís liked to wrestle here because it provided a soft landing.    
  
Thorin did not think he’d fallen asleep, merely sunk into the same half-conscious state he enjoyed at the bottom of the bath. Whatever peace he achieved shattered when he heard the bolt of the door slide open behind him. They were returning, they would see him instantly and Thorin tensed, bracing himself for the mocking titters, the japes, the order to go off to bed, not avail himself of the sitting room like an unwelcome guest.  
  
Yet none of that came. Only the heavy tread of boots on stone, then softer footfalls, muffled by the thick carpet on the floor. He ought to have sat up, greeted whoever it was, but he did not move from his position, curled on his side, face buried in a pillow. The dwarf who approached him was his father and Thráin was never shy about expressing his displeasure to his son or anyone who vexed him.  
  
His father came so close that he could feel the heat of him near his back, but no rough hand descended upon his shoulder to shake him awake. Thorin’s eyes were open, unfocused, staring at the pattern in the back of the chair, Thráin surely knew he need not rouse his son, he would probably merely sigh, ask what he was doing there, tell him such behavior was _unacceptable_ for a dwarf of his age.  
  
Thorin waited. And waited. He waited so long that the only warmth that he felt upon his back was from the fire as his father added more coal. The smell of pipeweed grew. A surcoat was thrown off, boots fell to the floor, two solid thumps. And then the sound of his father’s solid bulk settling in a chair followed by the nearly-silent crack of a book being opened.  
  
Thráin, all the while, never said a word. He did not sigh or groan his disapproval. He looked at his son, warmed the chamber and set about reading and smoking. The oddity of his behavior prompted Thorin to roll over and eye his father, he was the one who broke the silence, asking, “Where is everyone?”  
  
“Dale,” his father replied easily, not a word about Thorin’s behavior, his previous surly silence, nor did he question what he was doing in his family’s apartment, all alone and half-dressed. “To watch the players. If they’re not terrible, your grandfather might engage them for the Mountain to enjoy.”  
  
Something squirmed low in Thorin’s guts. They were all out enjoying themselves. None had given a thought for him. He did not know if he was cheered or embittered by that notion. It only made him more tired. “You didn’t go.”  
  
Thráin chuckled quietly, not taking his gaze from his book. “Well, if they’re good enough to be seen, I will when they perform again. And if they’re awful, I’ve been spared an evening of bad theatre. Either way, it works out for my benefit.”  
  
Thorin could not fault his logic and lapsed once again into silence. Not a word of censure came from his father’s lips, he read and he smoked and Thorin felt his eyes grow heavy. Stillness, the warmth of the fire and the sweet smell of the smoke lulled him and he only blinked blearily when a blanket was thrown over him and he saw his father standing over him, beard and hair unbraided, dressed for sleep.  
  
“You’re here,” he said simply in response to Thorin’s unanswered question. “Might as well stay. ‘Night, lad.”  
  
Thorin drew back once more into the darkness behind his eyelids, into peaceful silence and solitude at last.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thorin has a bad day in the first winter of their exile. **Warning:** For references to **corporeal punishment** , **spanking** and **physical discipline** of children.

The night before ended with a bellow and the morning began with a groan. 

Winter was coming, their first to be weathered in lean-tos, wagons and tents until they reached the Iron Hills. Snow fell all night, heavy, grey and wet, weighing the roof of the tent Thorin shared with his brother and sister down so much that he had to rise and brush it off before the walls caved in around him.

His rising every hour or two was not conducive to Frerin or Dís’s slumber - or his own, but they bore the hardship much more cheerfully than he’d done. They cuddled close together, Frerin retelling ghost stories and botching the plots so badly that Dís giggled more than she gasped.

Thorin curled up tight in his bedroll, flinching every time Frerin’s arm brush his or he kicked him accidentally - _intentionally,_ Thorin corrected sourly in his mind as he shifted away until his left side was flush against the tent wall. _He thinks it’s funny I can’t sleep, it amuses him that I’m the one to take on extra work because he’s too small._

Dís was nearly as bad. Thorin was shocked and angered that neither his mother or his father had come to scold her for laughing so loudly. Every shrieking giggle was like a screw in his ear, trying to bore into his skull. They were too close, too loud, too hot and he only curled more tightly into himself, muscles tensing. Surely that would be enough to make them stop. Surely they would see how unhappy he was, how tired, and if they had any brotherly or sisterly affection for him, they would -

“ _Shut up!”_ Thorin screamed at him, his voice a roar in the quiet of the night, a thousand times louder than his siblings had been, louder than their parents’ worst arguments. “Damn you both, _shut up!”_

Perhaps they had read more of his displeasure in his hunched, stiff figure than he thought. Ordinarily such a command would have been ignored or laughed at, but Dís and Frerin were silent instantly. Both of them inched away from him to the other side of the tent, tugging pillows and furs as they went. They were so cowed by his shout that they did not speak again that night, not even to apologize for keeping him awake.

Thorin fell asleep eventually, chilled, and woke up shivering. Frerin and Dís were gone and his mother was bending over him with a frown on her face and a crease between her eyes. “I’ve been calling and calling, I sound like a fishmonger,” she said, nudging his leg with the toe of her boot. “Up you get.”

Thorin did not speak, just moaned into his arm. _Why?_ he wanted to ask. To go to the smithy, make nails, bring pennies back to the camp? And what would they buy with the money they did have? All they were doing was surviving now, cutting their rations back more and more until they could throw themselves upon the charity of Grór and his son and then...what else? They had no kingdom anymore, what else was there for them? To live and die as guests, as _beggars_ in the East? 

Thorin would rather stay in bed.

“Come on,” Freya said again, giving him a nudge that was more like a kick this time. She clucked her tongue impatiently and said, “If you don’t come with me, your father’ll go looking for you and he’s of a less kindly disposition than I, you know that well enough.”

Silence was all that answered her.

“Frerin’ll eat the last of the bacon, you can be sure of that,” she went on, thrumming her boot against the furs that were his only cushion between himself and the frozen ground. “And I’ll let Dwalin have your share of the eggs, those were dearly bought - ”

“I’m not hungry.”

She lingered a moment and Thorin imagined she folded her eyes and glared at him. Freya was a renowned beauty, but she could contort her beautiful features until she was glowering as cruelly and savagely as a gargoyle. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see and she swept out, letting a gust of cold air in as she left him alone.

His father came next as Thorin knew he would. It would make him look weak and childish if he blocked his ears to muffle some of Thráin’s shouting. It was only fitting that he should hear it, he subjected his brother and sister to the same for nothing more than being children and doing what children did.

He was almost grown. What he was doing now was nothing like a child or an adult did.

“What’s the matter with you?” his father demanded. “You’re not ill, come along and do as you’re told, you’re not so grown I can’t take my belt to you.”

“Can’t,” Thorin said, his voice thick with repressed feeling. 

“What nonsense is that?” Thráin asked, pulling the sheets off him at once. Thorin cringed a little at the icy air all around him, but did not move. Getting up seemed to him the most impossible task at the moment, how on earth did his father expect him to do anything but lie there?

With a sigh like a bellows Thráin crouched down on the tent floor and turned Thorin over roughly. He was a big lad, but his father was stronger than him and lifted him as easily as he had the furs and blankets that covered him. “Your legs aren’t broken, your hands aren’t broken, your head’s in once piece. That’s enough to be getting on with, as your Amad says. And so I say to you, _up you get.”_

Thorin tried to pull his arm out of his father’s grasp, but Thráin’s grip tightened. Not enough to be painful, but hard enough that Thorin knew he wasn’t going to give up as quickly as his mother had. “You think this is easy for me?” he asked, his voice low now, but no less furious. “For any of us? You are _lucky_ , my boy, we...we were lucky, you understand? There are lads of your age who lost both parents in that mountain. They have nothing, you’ve got your mother and I, your brother and sister, your grandfather, they get up and work. I’ll not have a son of mine shirk responsibilities because he’s heartsick. We’re _all_ heartsick and we carry on.”

Adad did not understand. Not one bit. Thorin did not _want_ to carry on, he wanted to lie beneath furs and wool until the world was remade. Deep in his heart there was guilt that he should be so callous, so ungrateful when others lost more than he did. But how could he feel gratitude? How could he feel anything?

“You’ve two choices,” Thráin continued and now his grip was hurting, cutting off the blood to Thorin’s fingers. Good. If only the rest of him could go numb too, to not _feel_ anything would be marvelous. “Either get up now and we’ll say nothing more about it or continue being obstinate and get a few good licks for your troubles.”

Thorin lifted himself up on one elbow and his father’s grip loosened enough for him to pull his arm away. Thráin sat back and seemed about to rise, satisfied that his son was doing the sensible thing and choosing to obey, but Thorin got up only high enough to look his father in the face and say, “I’ll take the beating.”

Thráin’s fingers were loosening his belt immediately, thick supple leather that would carry a sting to be felt for an hour or more before it faded. Thorin lay back down and put his head on his arms, limp and compliant. Something in his posture or his face, perhaps the flat affect of his voice, stopped his father’s hands before Thráin worked his belt out of its loops. He paused, regarded his son for a long moment before he rebuckled his belt and stood. 

“I’ll not have you making me late on top of everything,” he grumbled. “One day of leisure - of _sloth_ \- and you’ll work twice as hard on the morrow, mark me. And don’t expect me to come to your defence when talk of Thorin the Indolent starts up.”

When Thorin did not respond to that great insult, Thráin huffed a breath that clouded before his mouth in the cold air of the tent and went back outside. There was chatter, his mother and father had been joined by Fundin and Thrór, Thorin caught snatches of their conversation.

“Don’t know what’s got into the lad - ”

“ - not the only one who wants a lie-in - ”

“More than that, you know it is - ”

“ _Everyone_ is suffering, he can’t be rewarded for - ”

“Leave him be. Just leave him be.”

“He’ll be cold.” 

That voice was new to the conversation, but as familiar to Thorin as any of them. Dwalin. Thorin resumed the hunched posture he greeted his mother in, trying to avoid being seen, impossible if his dearest friend decided to poke his head into his tent. Could he get up for Dwalin? So Dwalin wouldn’t think him lazy or haughty or proud? 

No. He couldn’t.

“That’s his own affair,” Fundin said and there was the sound of bags being lifted over shoulders, the clinking of tools. “The thought of forge fire might coax him out ere long if nothing else. Let’s be off.”

When they were all gone, truly gone, Thorin buried his face in his pillow and wept. They were ugly tears that reddened his face and made his throat hoarse as he tried to stifle his sobs in his sleeve. Thorin wept until his eyes ached and his throat was dry, his stomach aching with hunger and the force of the shudders that wracked him. The worst of it was, he had no idea why he was crying. It might have been anything, his whole life was in shambles and he did not know why they carried on. There was no point to any of it. Some of their best loved kin were gone, crushed and burned away. _Burned._

He would never see his grandmother again. Thorin had known this, even before they took stock of the survivors, children screaming for their parents, parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters running around begging for word of their loved ones. Thorin did not ask for his grandmother for he’d known as he dragged his father away from their burning kingdom that she was gone forever. 

It hit him again now, more forcefully than it had in the hours afterward, even when his grandfather beat his breast and howled her name. Not her Name, of course, would they ever be given a proper funeral, their beloved dead? But what he’d always called her, since they were children together. _Dísa._ Gone, gone forever. Never would he hear her booming laugh, never ride beside her in the fields while his father chided them both to slow down, be careful. She was never careful. 

Thorin had seen her, one last time, bold as anything with her bow, arrow aimed straight for the beast’s heart. She’d done it before. She was the warrior who landed the killing blow to the drake that killed his great-grandfather and when Thorin saw her rush forward, unhelmed, her grey hair shining like mithril, the metal shaft of her arrow straight and its point deadly, he thought to himself, _We’re saved._

Then the creature turned its horrible head a moment too soon. It moved, it drew breath and the arrow missed its mark. The air grew hot as a furnace and Thorin was blinded by heat stumbling to his feet, reaching blindly and finding his father’s arm, knowing the heavy ring on his left hand and he _ran_ with him then. Ran before either of them could see their Queen and Kingdom burn. 

He did not know why he should be thinking of her alone, his father’s mother, shieldmaiden and queen, of all the others. So many others that Thorin mourned in equal measure, but it was her sapphire eyes that were burned into his mind, the lines around her eyes and mouth from smiling and scowling, the proud tattoos that marked her as a warrior. Maybe he thought of his grandmother now because she might have saved them all. Maybe he thought of her now because with her gone, there truly was no hope that their lives would ever be salvaged.

And now he remembered her, a different time, long ago, another winter’s day. He’d been disagreeable. That was what his mother said. Disagreeable, to his parents, his instructors, even in the warrior’s training ground, his favorite place in the mountain. He was so young he was not given edged blades, just weighted wooden swords, but he’d thrown his on the ground in a fit of childish pique and declared that he would do nothing else with it for the rest of the day.

He was fortunate that his father was not there because he would have given him a beating in front of all his friends and superiors, he might have died of embarrassment on the spot. His grandmother _was_ there and her hands were broader and thicker even than his father's. Humiliation would be the least of his concern if she decided to give him a few sharp swats.

But her big hands did not raise to land a blow on his backside. Instead she held one out of him to take and jerked her head toward the door. “Come along, then,” she said and Thorin took her hand and let him lead him away from the others.

Grandmother did not take him back to his room to sulk, nor did she see out his parents to reprimand him. Instead she took him out of the gates of Erebor itself where there was snow, freshly fallen on the ground. They walked hand in hand without a word, she only slowed her great strides when Thorin struggled to keep up, legs sunk to the top of his boots in snowfall. 

They came to the paddock and she called for her horse. Not the ponies he was made to ride, but a _real_ horse, huge and black, his muscular sides rising and falling as his breath streamed out of his nostrils like smoke. “There’s the lad,” his grandmother said smiling, patting the creature’s huge nose. Then, without warning, she bent and lifted Thorin up into the saddle, swinging herself upon the horse’s back behind him. 

With the merest pressure of her legs, they were off at a steady trot, moving faster and faster to the edge of the paddock. Thorin held on, but his grandmother’s firm and steady arm around his waist reassured him that he would not fall. His stomach gave a lurch when she kicked her heels into the horse’s sides and they were _flying_ , only for a moment, over the paddock fence into the grassland beyond.

For the first time all day, Thorin laughed aloud, delightly. His grandmother laughed too and they rode for ages, kicking up snow, but he was warm from the heat of the animal beneath him and his grandmother’s chest against his back. Only his cheeks were ruddy when they returned home and Thorin had entirely forgotten what it was that made him so ornery. 

Now there was no warmth, no steady rhythm or the comfort of a dumb animal to guide over streams, through grasslands, around trees. No one to keep an arm tight around him so he never had to fear falling. There was only the pain, the sorrow and the cold. 

Thorin fell asleep, on and off. Eventually he became conscious of a gnawing emptiness in his belly and he wished he’d eaten breakfast. If he’d risen to eat his breakfast, he might have felt well enough to go to work. If he went to work, he might have forgotten his troubles by now, rather than sitting with them heavy on his mind all day.

Another gust of cold wind blew in, but this time there was an accompanying warmth. “Brought you something,” Dwalin said and shoved something small and round under Thorin’s nose, wrapped in a scrap of cloth.

Thorin opened one bleary eye and found Dwalin lying on his back next to him, pressed close enough that he could feel the heat radiating off him, like a furnace. It was only then that he realized how very cold he was, for he had not replaced the blankets his father had thrown off him earlier in the day. 

“Snuck it off Frerin’s plate,” Dwalin confided, not looking at Thorin, but at the ceiling. Thorin unwrapped his small parcel and saw that it was two slices of ham between two slices of crusty bread. Dwalin must have had it in his pocket all day, it wasn’t hard and cold as Thorin expected. “It’s his own fault for not paying attention - nevermind that it was yours to begin with. Anyway, how can anyone expect you to be out and about if you haven’t eaten? And, d’you know, I think you’ve got the right of it? No work worth our hammers - if I see another horse needs shoeing before day’s end, I’ll shove tell the rider where he can stick his nails…”

Thorin ate slowly and Dwalin talked. And talked. Of the two brothers, Balin was the wordsmith and Dwalin did not have a scholar’s wit, but he might have been the greatest weaver of epic poetry the world over to Thorin. There was no pressure for him to respond, to give a sign of interest, nothing. He merely ate his belated breakfast in silence as Dwalin filled the cold tent with heat and stories of the day.

Someone called for him, Fundin, probably and Dwalin got up, giving Thorin’s shoulder a squeeze as he did so. “Off with me, then,” he said, pausing at the entrance of the tend and doubling back to cover Thorin with the blankets he himself had been lounging on. They were warmed through and Dwalin tucked them firmly around Thorin’s shoulders saying, “Can’t have you dying of frostbite, can we? That’d be a sorry end to a sorry day.”

Dwalin was almost gone before Thorin lifted his head. There was a flash of hope across his friend’s face that mellowed to acceptance when he realized that Thorin was not getting up to join him, but only wanted to speak to him.

“Thank you,” Thorin said softly, not quite meeting his eyes.

Dwalin grinned at him. “Any time,” he replied easily, then, his face took on a more serious expression as he eyed Thorin seriously. “I mean it. Any time.”

Thorin lay back down, but did not sleep, though the blankets were a comfort and he felt better for having eaten. Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow he would shoulder his hammer and join the others at the forge, wondering if Dwalin would rudely accost the next farmer whose horse had thrown a shoe, laughing and teasing him when he did not. Tomorrow they would huddle close to the forge to keep their toes from freezing in their boots and his grandfather or Fundin or even his father would tell some story of a campaign they’d partaken in, trekking across snowy peaks, skidding over ice slides. Something amusing always seemed to happen on the road and they would all laugh over it, breath mingling in the icy air. 

For now, in this tent, Thorin found himself a spot of warmth in the cold and felt slightly better for it.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been a bad week. That was what Dís muttered, first with a consoling hand on his shoulder, then with her fingers pressed over her eyes irritably and finally, muttering to herself as she closed her bedroom door firmly behind her. 

_Finally,_ Thorin thought when he heard the slam. And then, _Don’t go._

He sat alone before the fire, his unlit pipe in his hands. He’d gone to smoke, he remembered that much. But he didn’t have as much tobacco as he thought he would and it set him off on a bad tangent about unnecessary expenses - directed at himself and he didn’t hear his sister offer him some of her pipeweed until she was too close and dangling the pouch before his nose, as if he was a child she was trying to force-feed its supper. 

He knocked it out of her hand without thinking, scattering the expensive weed all over the floor. Dís didn’t bother cleaning it up, just left it there before she stomped away. That was the final straw, evidently. Violence, wastefulness, ingratitude. How could he resent her for leaving?

But he did. He wanted her to come back. Not so he could apologize - the words would not come, his throat was too stiff and tight for any speech to come easily to him - but so he could be reassured that he hadn’t driven her away. 

Driven himself away, rather. He’d offered, more than once, when Dís and Víli were engaged to find some flat of his own, give them their privacy, but they’d insisted - _she’d_ insisted and he’d never been able to deny her anything when he could help it. She wanted his presence. Perhaps she’d forgotten just how awful he could be. 

Thorin had been just about to hurl his pipe into the hearth when the door opened and whistling grated on his ears.

“Evenin’,” Víli called cheerfully. “D’you know, I don’t think this extra-shift taking is for me? I know some dwarrows ain’t happy ‘less they’re down a shaft all day, but I needs a bit more liveliness than that to keep me merry. Still, for a good cause - ah, that’s a sore shame.”

He spotted the tobacco pouch on the floor and crouched down to clean up the mess it made in its fall. 

“I know I oughtn’t be spending me coin on such, but if a fellow can’t come home to a good wholesome pipe at the end o’the day, well, that sours the evening, eh?” Víli drew the string on what remained of the pipeweed tight and placed it on the mantle. “How’s about I go down the tobacconists on the morrow? Buy you an ounce or two, if you’re wanting - as a treat, eh? I know you don’t go in much for presents, but I’ll not hear any argument…”

He paused, waiting apparently for Thorin to insist and when no protest came, he smiled in a satisfied way and went to the larder. “Good. 

Víli assembled his supper and sat down, eating contentedly and talking between bites. “An’ so I says to him, I says, ‘Talk to the Guildmaster if your pay’s so very bad, or find another range, does you no good complaining to me,’ I think I insulted him, for he just run off in a huff. But you know, I don’t think he went to the Guildmaster at all. And that just says to me that he were being greedy, is all, if you won’t go to the trouble to negotiate for higher pay, eh?”

Thorin hadn’t heard a word of it. Or rather, he stopped listening when Víli spoke of Guildmasters. It was hard for his people who worked for other masters here. The Broadbeam and Firebeard Guilds saw to the concerns of all their members, arguably, but everyone knew which Clans got the least profitable commissions and who were the first to be sacked when times were hard. Then they applied to their King; or rather, the overseer of their poor. 

Thorin got up and stomped off to bed, saying nothing when Víli bid him, “Good night, then!”

He said nothing the next morning either when Dís knocked once on his door and asked whether or not he was coming to breakfast. And neither did he say anything when she asked whether or not he was getting up for work.

It was as if he was trapped in a fog, though the day outside might have been fine. A fog of his own making, a darkness inside his mind that caused a veil to fall over his thoughts, his heart, his very body. Speaking was as impossible as standing. As impossible as working. 

There was murmuring outside the door, the sound of dwarves trying not to be heard. Thorin could make out only the cadence of their voices, but he fancied he knew exactly how their words tended.

_“What’s wrong with your brother?”_

_“Nothing. He does this, sometimes, indulges himself in lazing about the house. I ought to have warned you before you married me.”_

He’d offered. Hadn’t he offered? A dozen times or more. _I could take my own rooms, I could leave tonight, stay with Balin and Dwalin until I find my own lodgings._ No, she’d insisted. Wouldn’t hear him out. No, no, no. How she must regret her stubbornness. 

Víli might insist upon him going. Irpa still had that free room, now that he’d vacated it. A tiny voice in the back of his mind insisted that he was not so far gone that he would subject himself to Nori and Dori as punishment for being a wretch. But then, he wasn’t so far off from thinking even that fate might be too good for him. 

It was a lethargy too tepid for sleep, too forceful to allow him to rise from the bed, to think about washing or dressing. His hands did not ache for want of exertion - thus proving the depth of his wickedness. What dwarf, even at his lowest, would take no pleasure from work?

Thorin thought of Bifur. Whose head was nearly cleaved in twain, who had days and nights of terror and confusion, but who worked, despite it all. If he could do nothing else, he could take up a knife and carve. 

“That’s too bad,” Víli said, audibly. Then the door shut.

Too bad. Had he suggested Thorin find himself another place to live? Had Dís refused? Had he been consoling her over her sad lot, to be tied to such a rotten soul as he through blood and fealty?

It hardly mattered. Pitiful or not, that was his sister’s lot and she must suffer it for as long as Thorin lived.

What a cruel joke that was. That he alone should be her closest kin. What of their mother, solid and firm? What of their father, shrewd and intelligent? Their grandfather, beloved, despite all he suffered. Their brother. Their _brother._

Tears. Tears upon tears, but no sound emerged from between his tight, drawn lips. Oh, Frerin. How he had _failed_ him. To restrain him. To protect him. Thorin might as well have raised the spear that pierced his chest. Truly, he might have. To what misery he had doomed them all. Frerin could not be blamed for fighting. His thoughts were honorable, of duty. But Thorin’s duty had been to protect him, even from his own better nature. And he had failed his brother just as he failed everyone he had ever known. 

To know Thorin was to be disappointed by him. He was never sharp enough for his father, in wits or in war. He was never cunning enough for his mother, who lamented their degraded state, wished that he could have gotten them more. His brother had lost his life because of Thorin’s inadequacy. His sister might be happy, but in spite of him, not because of him. He was a millstone draped round her neck. 

Sleep touched him eventually. Half-waking dreams plagued him, dreams of drowning in a sea of blood. Hot, choking, trying to swim with leaden limbs. 

A knock upon the door startled him back into consciousness and Thorin woke with a gasp. The sheets were pushed down to his waist, the room was hot and he was covered in sweat. 

Víli poked his head in. “Did I wake you? Sore sorry, but I just wanted t’say, I gone down the market on me way back, filled the tin back up to the brim with pipeweed. The fine stuff, as what comes from the halfling fields. Aye, aye, it’s a mite pricey, but I always says when you’ve been suffering a bad few days, investing in a pick-me-up’s no crime. I’ll just leave it on the mantle then, I telled Dís that you get first puff, she said it was only fair. Right so. I’ll be intruding again when supper’s on.”

Thorin had only caught every fourth word, but he got the gist of his brother-in-law’s chatter. He lay himself right back down, back toward the door; what right had he to pipes? He hadn’t done a thing all day. 

Nor did he the next day. He slept intermittently, never deeply and never for long. Every time he woke, he felt more tired than he had been when he fell asleep. His eyes were red and dry, his muscles tense, his throat tight. 

But something seemed to be waking up within him. His appetite, anyway, since it was on the third day of this nonsense that he ventured out when he smelled supper wafting in from under the door.

“Hey!” Víli shouted in a victorious way, flinging the soup spoon over his head in triumph, spraying Dís with gravy. She didn’t seem annoyed, just wiped the mess off her face and licked her fingers.

“Not bad,” she commented. “D’you have more pepper about?”

“Aha!” Víli reached over and bopped her on the nose with a finger. “Pepper’d be just the thing! That’s a fine nack you’ve got for food, missus!”

“I can tell you what tastes good, just can’t cook it,” she shrugged, grinning. “Isn’t that so?”

 

This latter question was directed at Thorin. He hesitated a long moment before mumbling, “Your bread’s good.”

The compliment oughtn’t have affected her as it apparently did. Dís skipped over to him, embraced him and kissed his cheek. Thorin wiggled away, like a squirming child, but it was more for her sake than his own; he probably smelled ripe. 

Neither of them said anything. Well, that wasn’t true. They didn’t say anything about him in particular. Just that he was right on time and he ought to sit down and eat while their supper was hot. 

Thorin thought he might as well, since he’d come out. He managed one plate, then another. He spoke very little, but Víli and Dís chattered around him, subtly filling him in on the last few days’ happenings in the village. He helped with the dishes. Then paused, not knowing what to do with himself. He did not particularly want to go back to his bed, for fear that he’d fall into the same weakness that had dragged him into inaction as before. The fog wasn’t lifted, only lightened, a little. 

“Have a smoke,” Dís urged him. Then, winking, added, “So the rest of us can start in.”

She was good as her word. He knew she would be. Neither she nor Víli had touched his indulgent purchase. Thorin really didn’t have much choice but to settle in with his pipe. He supposed he ought to feel somewhat ganged up on, but he couldn’t summon any emotion other than a tired sort of gratitude. 

Once Thorin’s pipe was lit, Dís and Víli both made for the tobacco tin, sharing a light and smoking for a silence that lasted all of a minute.

“Nice quiet,” he said. “Best enjoy it while it lasts, eh?”

Dís kicked him and made a face, the expression torn between surprise and consternation. Thorin looked at her curiously and she blushed from the base of her throat all the way up to her ears. 

Víli rubbed his shin in confusion. “You said you wanted to tell him soon as he come out!”

“Not as soon as! I said we ought to wait a bit!” Dís insisted.

“Well, we’ve had supper and all, that’s a bit, eh?” Víli looked at Thorin, as if for support, but Thorin could not give any, as he had no idea what they were talking about. A very dark voice in his mind mused that this might be the moment they asked him to leave.

“You aren’t to say a _word_ about leaving,” Dís said warningly, as if reading his mind. “Not a _word_. You also have to be happy - I’m very sorry if you aren’t feeling happy, but you must _pretend_. Just smile. A little one will do.”

“What am I supposed to be happy about?” Thorin asked, lowering his pipe from his lips. Víli was grinning already, practically bouncing in his seat and Dís, though not quite as exuberant, couldn’t hold back a pleased smile.

“You’re going to be an uncle,” she said simply. “Now smile, even if you don’t mean it.”

Thorin did not smile. Not at first. It took him a minute to even realize what it was his sister had said to him. He was going to be an uncle. Which meant _she_ was going to have a child. Thorin’s vision went odd for just a moment. Because he could swear that sitting before him was a dwarfling of thirty years, whose feet did not touch the ground, whose hair was braided in messy plaits. Then he blinked and while her braids were well mussed after a long day’s work, his sister was full-grown and staring at him anxiously. 

“Too pleased for words,” Víli pronounced decidedly. “So was I.”

“You _laughed_ ,” Dís reminded him.

“With pleasure!”

“I’m going to be an uncle?” Thorin asked. Then, for the first time in he didn’t know how long, he smiled.

“There,” Dís nodded, satisfied. “You’ve held up your end, we don’t need to talk about it again if you’d rather not. I just wanted the one - ”

But she didn’t get a chance to finish. Thorin’s pipe fell to the floor with a clatter and his sister’s was quick to join it. He lifted her right out of her chair, embraced her and kissed her, once, twice, a baker’s dozen times. She laughed and he, incredibly, laughed as well. 

“You’re pleased?” she murmured in his ear. “Really pleased?”

“Really pleased,” he nodded, knocking their heads together briefly. 

Víli stood beside them, having rescued their pipes from being stepped on. “There! Told you he’d be happy as anything! Nothing like a bit o’good news to cheer a body up, eh?”

“Nothing like,” Thorin nodded. Víli opened his arms and Thorin embraced him as well. He felt giddy, light-headed, but at least he felt _something_. A baby. A blessing. A _blessing_ for their family, at long last. “We’ll have to take on more commissions.”

“That’s what Dwalin said,” Dís said. “And he said to tell you to get your arse back in the forge, otherwise you’d be in danger of his buying the babe a finer present than you.”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Thorin replied, running a hand through his hair distractedly. Aye, he’d have to get the little lad or lass something...well, something grand was out of the question. But something they’d love. He’d have to think on it. It was a lot to take in. But a lot to look forward to. A new hope. A new chance. 

At last.


End file.
